September is Life Insurance Awareness Month! Unfortunately, life insurance myths can be some of the most persistent misleading misinformation affecting people planning retirement. These findings can commonly lack adequate research to back up the popular perceptions. Consequentially, a few have fallen into avoidable financial traps. Insurance has the potential to be the strongest plan with the right guidance.

Benefits of Utilizing Life Insurance 1. Protection of income in an untimely death to help the survivors. 2. Insurance of savings. 3. Ease tax management. 4. Maximize investments and returns.

When it comes to retiring, experts are pretty unanimous, Americans are not as prepared as they should be. There are many smalls steps that people should take to have the lives that they want in their golden years. These steps also tend to coincide with certain milestones that you should mark on your calendar.

Wills and trusts are both invaluable estate planning documents but they serve very different functions and are used at different times. Used in combination, they can help provide a comprehensive estate plan and both should be addressed when planning for retirement.

Retiring is the goal of every worker who dreams of leisurely breakfasts and time in the garden. However, getting to retirement takes some financial effort and strategic planning. The reality of having no job means that you're on your own when it comes to every facet of your financial life. Before you send in that letter of resignation, get familiar with the top questions that you need to ask yourself before retiring. You'll have less stress as a result of these well-answered questions.

Retirement is not the end of your life. In fact, for many, it's the beginning of one of life's most exciting chapters. There is a choice one must make, though, between sitting around and letting life go by and embracing the life that one has always wanted to live. Those who do the former are passive, while those who do the latter are active in planning. If you wish to get the most out of your retirement, it's important that you begin to set goals as soon as possible. Only through goal setting is a fantastic retirement possible.

Your adult children need all the support and encouragement they can get from you when it comes to money. Many people today require the advice of not just a professional money manager but individuals who have been through life and have seen a lot. Saving money, early retirement planning, avoiding debts, and investing in education are important topics your adult kids need to know more about in details. Give them priceless gift of wisdom.

These days, more and more people are putting off retiring by the time they reach 65. Instead, these Baby Boomers are opting to continue working until they are a bit older, usually by the time they reach 70. There are a variety of reasons why they are delaying retirement, with one of the chief reasons being that they truly love their jobs and want to continue to be productive in them for a longer period of time. Of course, retiring past the standard 65 years old carries a number of benefits. It is worth exploring these advantages to determine whether its wise to begin planning to retire later in life.

It began in December 2015, the Federal Reserve started a policy of raising interest rates to more common historical levels. This was the first rate increase since 2006, and there have been additional hikes in the months since. While rising interest rates can be a negative for borrowers as the cost of their loans will likely go up, it can bring up some interesting options for those who are about to retire.

"Animal Spirits", which Shiller wrote with George Akerlof of Berkeley, concerns departures from the full-employment economy: How do we explain the fluctuations of the business cycle, or the existence of involuntary unemployment? In answering these questions, Shiller and Akerlof turn to John Maynard Keynes's notion of the animal spirits: "the restless and inconsistent element in the economy" that is not easily explained by reference to rational actors with simple economic motivations.

We have reveiwed our 529 College accounts with American Funds and see that the New World Fund with in this account has risen in value lately. However, its past performance has been weak. We see this as an opportunity to move out of this fund and into a US based, dividend paying fund called the Washington Mutual Fund within your 529 College account at American Funds.

There’s a good reason to have long-term care coverage in your wealth management plan. If you need to go to a nursing home, it can cost more than $90,000 a year for a private room, according to a survey by Genworth Financial, an insurance company. The costs, especially for longer stays because of Alzheimer’s disease, can deplete your estate. Click the article below for more information.

As Missouri Public School teachers and staff, one of your benefits is a defined benefit guarantee pension. But many Missouri educators do not have Social Security benefits accrued during their years as a Missouri teacher. However, over the years many Missouri teachers have used supplemental savings into the 403b plan with LaBrunerie Financial to reduce taxes and create a nest egg for themselves and their families in the future. We have posted a link to an article which recently ran in the Columbia Tribune about the retirement savings crisis many Americans are facing.

The Glass-Steagall measure puts presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump and his party in the company of unlikely allies such as Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist who ran against Democrat Hillary Clinton on a plan that included Glass-Steagall reinstatement, underscoring the blurring of political lines in the 2016 race.

In April of 2016, the Department of Labor (DOL) has made regulatory changes to our industry. Please find, attached, an article about the DOL changes, as well as a link to DOL’s website that provides more information.

In this article, you will find a report run by Morningstar, a thrid-party reseach firm based in Chicago, that compares three Mid-Capitalization Funds to the S&P 500. It has been a long standing belief of our firm that Mid-Cap funds continue to out perform the S&P 500 index over time. This report illustrates the performamnce of the following funds between 9/1/2006 to 6/30/2015:

American Century Heritage - Inv (TWHIX)

Vangaurd Mid-Cap Growth - Inv (VMGRX)

Vangaurd Mid-Cap Value Index - Adm (VMVAX)

S&P 500 Index

To smooth out the returns, we did not include the last year due to geopolitical events and other occurrences that have driven the markets higher. Please click image to view full report.

The nation’s working class had another opportunity to demonstrate its political clout Tuesday, as primary voters went to the polls in Illinois and Ohio, Rust Belt states that have suffered intensely from the loss of good manufacturing jobs. Last week, the insurrection handed Michigan’s Democratic primary to Bernie Sanders while continuing to buoy the insurgent Republican candidacy of Donald Trump. Voters’ anger and frustration, driven in part by relentless globalization and technological change, may not propel either candidate to the presidency. But it is already having a big impact on America’s future, shaking a once-solid consensus that freer trade is ncessarily, a good thing.